Guest Editorial
Paul K. Oldroyd Technical Fellow
Bell Helicopter Textron Inc. Member Since 2012
smeSpeaks Planning for the Future of Manufacturing I
n Texas, a “brand” usually means “this livestock belongs to so-and-so…” You might be smiling right now, but this is not a bad analogy. A brand is distinct. A brand is recogniz- able. A brand is a mark of influence or ownership—in some ways it is an identity. “Making the future…,” if applied to industry seems ethereal, almost too broad and too philo- sophical to have a reasonable chance to define, to anticipate and to reduce to actionable steps. However, applied to an organization, it has a more definite meaning. It becomes a charter or a challenge. SME’s brand and associated tagline “Making the future.
Together.” requires having a vision of the future state, and rec- ognizing the steps needed to be taken to realize that vision. It infers an understanding of the dependent relationship between imminent action and that future state. It requires visionary thinking, preparation and education. It demands action, but that action must be sufficiently controlled to preserve the proper trajectory. Unlike Jules Verne, if you expect to reach the moon, you don’t just aim at it and shoot—you must know where it will be in a future state and navigate to that point in space to ensure a successful rendezvous. Trajectories are calculated based on fundamental laws, predictable response to physical conditions. In the manufacturing community, trajectory is a function of market demands. SME’s members are uniquely positioned to understand and respond to these demands as they relate to and influence domestic manufacturing.
The perception of how manufacturing technology re- sponds to market demands is something like a blacksmith shop in an old-west town, or like Chicago during the indus- trial revolution…“hammer on it until it’s done, and get a bigger hammer if you need to.” There is nothing wrong with a success-oriented attitude, and brute-force often works, but when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything tends
to look like a nail. The reality is that the tools available today are much more sophisticated than those in our old toolbox. Automation, mechanization, robots and digital manufactur- ing are common. Perhaps our approach to how we plan for the future of manufacturing should be as sophisticated, as scientific, as capable as the mechanical tools that are currently being deployed for our production lines. Simula- tion should be exploited to avoid trial and error. Project and program planning phases should employ statistical methods from the onset. Perhaps we should sequester some of our limited ManTech research funds to more thoroughly define a systematic, scientific approach to the manufacturing process as opposed to just to the product. In the business reality, “respond to market demands” is often translated as “seek rate opportunity.” Increasingly, OEMs have a difficult time competing for low-tech, high- labor manufacturing, and domestic labor cannot compete with foreign labor rates. Tier-1, Tier-2 and foreign suppli- ers will continue to provide the bulk of manufacturing’s “heavy-lifting,” with lower overhead and accepting smaller profit margins. From a manufacturing perspective, we need to understand when to seek rate opportunity versus when to add value to domestic manufacturing by applying new technology throughout the supply chain. Rate opportunities tend to normalize over time, while technology insertion (as- suming capital is carefully planned and amortized) tends to have a longer half-life. This is particularly true in long-cycle, low-volume business. The cautious use of tailored automa- tion, selective mechanization and modular manufacturing can offer a step-function change in efficiency and provide improved quality. In the end-game, a prescient, dedicated approach to high-value processing can compete and win over a rate-only philosophy.
March 2014 |
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